Sunday, September 25, 2016

Civilization? What Civilization?

"We
are living on the last of the aid, and the last of the vegetables that
came from the countryside. There is no milk, no cheese, nothing.""None of us have cooking fuel ... so we make bonfires outside."Om Majed KaMran, 58, Aleppo"We will continue to defend our people in Aleppo and our existence. We will not surrender. We will repel them.""Aleppo will remain free of Assad, his sectarian militias, and thugs."Nour el-Din el-Zinki, insurgent group, Aleppo

"American officials -- they say something in the morning and they do the opposite in the evening. We cannot take them at their word, to be frank.""We don't listen to their statements, we don't care about it, we don't believe it."Bashar al-Assad, Damascus

"This
has been a tremendous success for Russia across the board -- I don't
see why they would want to bring this [their aid to Assad in destroying
Aleppo while slaughtering Sunni Syrians] to a close.""Not only in fighting terrorism, killing Russian jihadis, and re-establishing a role in the Middle East, but sticking a finger in the eye of Washington."David Schenker, director, Program on Arab Politics, Washington Institute

The aftermath of an airstrike near Aleppo on the weekend. (AFP)

Bunker-busting bombs flown by the Syrian airforce and reinforced by Russia's airforce
are being deployed in civilian areas in rebel-held Aleppo.
Bunker-busters would be most useful in areas where people attempt to
shelter themselves in subterranean havens like bomb shelters. The bombs'
notable capability in destroying reinforced underground chambers hugely
useful as measure to destroy an enemies' defences, and useful to the
Assad regime in directly targeting civilian enclaves, in a new version
of a burnt-earth policy of total destruction.

It
appears that fully 50 percent of the victims of the vicious bombardment
that was initiated on Wednesday in an all-out attack have been children
already suffering deprivation resulting from months of siege. As Syrian
and Russian jets continue to blast Aleppo preparatory to a ground
assault, the Syrian rebel volunteer civil defence White Helmets has
mobilized all their resources to rescue whomever they can from the
hellfire and the rubble, and in the process have themselves become
targets of regime attacks. Of their four action centres, three have been
destroyed.

"The White Helmets are completely exhausted. Aleppo is being burned", civil defence volunteer Ammar al-Selmo despaired. "I have not seen in my life such bombardment. It is very, very intense", Ibrahim Alhaj,
a Syrian Civil Defence member stated. And to complete the picture of a
people whose existence is being obliterated as the world watches and the
United Nations twists its hands in hapless inadequacy to yet another
demonstration of grand-scale atrocities, Abdulkafi Al-Hamdo, a teacher in Aleppo said "This means welcome to hell. We expect extermination."

The
bombardment has identified in its focus its clear and unequivocal
intentions, targeting residential areas, infrastructure and civil
defence centres for a complete sweep of whatever is left of the
residents' and the rebels' defences and desire to surmount this grim
threat to their existence. There is little mystery to the purpose, while
a Syrian military official confirmed the continuation of airstrikes
and shelling until the operation is prepared to expand into a planned
ground invasion of the Aleppo districts held by the rebels.

Leaflets were dropped by
the military over the city, urging regime opposition members' surrender;
to take advantage of an limited-time-offer amnesty for fighters
agreeing to surrender their arms. "The belt is getting tighter around you. Surrender now or you will meet your inevitable destiny". The leaflet came complete with a photograph of a bearded militant lying dead, a rocket-propelled grenade beside him.

A
prolongation of the most recently-failed ceasefire is out of the
question, since Assad 'doesn't trust the Americans'. As though he
imagines himself loftily trustworthy in any index of human empathetic
conviction, as though he cares for the welfare of the population of
Syria beyond those who cravenly support him in his lust for continued
power and pathology of vengeance he exerts toward those who have the
criminal audacity to question his divine right to rule and to ruin.

Just
as the Syrian regime feels itself to be beyond reproach for its belief
that it is emulating the Israeli military when it rains leaflets
beforehand, down on areas it plans to assault, to warn residents to
remain clear of targeted areas, the Syrian military equates that effort
to save civilian lives with its extended warning to Syrian rebels
complete with gruesome retribution striking "paid" for daring to offend
the Syrian Shiite Alawite regime by contesting its legitimacy. The Israeli leaflets offer life, the Syrian ones, death.

Assad
scorning what he terms as American inconstancy as though the United
States administration and its military have negotiated poorly with his
blameless administration, represents a mind-boggling mental challenge in
and of itself. Is he complaining that the U.S. administration that
warned of consequences to follow should the "red line" of chemical
weapons be used, never followed through when Assad ordered their use,
killing hundreds of Syrian civilians, turning the other way rather than
making good on their threat?

While the United Nations
declares criminal acts on a grand scale by a brutal totalitarian regime,
no one powerful nation and no group of confederate nations would pledge
to confront the barbarians to protect a people whose ruler loses no
opportunities to slaughter, a clique of grimly conscienceless nations
like Russia, Iran and Lebanon have become deadly co-predators with no
opposition. Five years of civil war with each year of the odious Assad
destroying 100,000 lives represents a monumental toll, growing still, of
lives lost, with no end in sight.

A Syrian man looks at a heavily damaged building following air strikes on rebel-held eastern areas of Aleppo. (AFP:Karam Al-Masri)

This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.